Monday, 3 November 2014

Brassens
tells his story of the reaction of an eminent flute player, whose talents and
compositions had earned him the place as head of the King’s music, when he was
offered a noble title in recognition. It
makes a charming little tale.However, it
has a deeper significance in the Brassens story. “Le
petit joueur de flûtiau“ is Brassens’ reply
to those of his friends who sought, in the early 1960s, to obtain for him the high honour of election to the small
elite cultural authority, the Académie Française

The video of
this song on You tube is created by Mme Christine Mattei-Barraud, who is to be congratulated for her
collage of beautiful pictures.

The little flute player
The little fellow on the flute
Had charge of music at the court
In gratitude for his songs
The king offered him a coat o’ arms.
I don't want to be a noble
Answered the song-maker
With aristocrat's crest to boot.

My style would get high and mighty

They would say throughout the land

The flute player has betrayed us.

And my poor little steeple
To me would seem to stand too low
No longer would I bend the knee
Before the kindly God of home
I would require for my grand soul
All the saints of Notre-Dame
With a bishop along to bootMy style would get high and mighty

They would say throughout the land

The flute player has betrayed us

(And the small room where I was born

Would be dismal for me to stay in
I’d give up my shabby couch
For a four post, canopied bed
I would change my tiny cottage
For a sumptuous manor house
With a splendid estate to bootMy style would get high and mighty

They would say throughout the land

The flute player has betrayed us

I will be ashamed of my blood,
Of the folk I’m descended from,
They’d see me turn by back upon
The branch from which I orig’nate .
I would want a magnificent
Genealogical tree
With some blue blood in it to bootMy style would get high and mighty

They would say throughout the land

The flute player has betrayed us.

No longer would I wish to wed
My betrothèd my fiancée,
I would not be giving my name
To a mere Ninon or such
I would require as my partner
A daughter of Spanish grandeeWith a princess along to bootMy style would get high and mighty

They would say throughout the land

The flute player has betrayed us

The little player of the flute

Gave a low bow to the courtiers
Without noble crest, or parchment
Without glory he went on his way
To his belfry and his poor house
To his parents and his betrothed
Let no-one say throughout the land
The flute player has betrayed us
And may God acknowledge as his’ own
The stout(6) little musician.

Le Petit joueur de flûtiau - Translation Notes

1)au château –« Castle »
in English gives a picture of a
drawbridge and turreted walls etc.
“Château” has this meaning of
course, but it has also the sense of a palace such as Le Château de
Versailles. I would prefer to set the
tale in the context of a monarchy like Louis XIV’s, with an opulent king free
to distribute patronage at will.

2)Avec un blason à la clé …… -
Brassens is making a play on words that would seem impossible to translate. “
La clef” is “the key” in music but “à la clef” is a figurative expression. Robert gives two examples:

a)« Il y a une recompense à la
clé” means “there is a reward at the end of it all”

The idea would seem to be therefore that of an extra factor
that comes at the end of a process- a
phrase in English would be: “to cap it all”/ “ brought into the bargain”

3)“Mon la se mettrait à gonfler” =
“My la will start to inflate”.
Apparently, the “la” number tells the pitch in which a song will be sung
or played. For example Brassens, we are
told, usually played his guitar in la7.
As a non-musician, I can confine myself to the figurative meaning. “Donner le la” to the musician means “To give
an A” but the phrase has a figurative meaning of “To set the tone/ the fashion / the scale.

4)Le joueur de flûte a trahi-
« trahir » is « to betray ». In English and in French too, I think, it is
a transitive verb needing an object.

6)il se mit en chemin vers son
clocher sa chaumine – Brassens had demonstrated the same priorities in real
life. Having taken refuge in the house
of Jeanne and her husband in 1944, Brassens chose to stay on there for 22
years, even after he had achieved success and had the wealth to live in comfort
in an upper-class neighbourhood. Jeanne’s
cramped house number 9, Impasse Florimont had, at the start, no hot water, no
gas, no electricity, no mains drainage, but Brassens felt himself cocooned in
this congenial environment. After he
moved out in 1966, he continued to miss his earlier, simple lifestyle for the
rest of his life (see Auprès de mon arbre). http://brassenswithenglish.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/aupres-de-mon-arbre.html

7)sa chaumine –is a small cottage, -the
image is usually of a thatched cottage.
It is a poetic word.

8)The stout(6) little musician. – I use
“Stout” in its older sense of proud, valiant and strong.

In the
1960s, a number of Brassens friends approached him to ask for his approval as
they promoted his candidature for a vacant seat in the elite assembly of the
Académie Française. This is the
illustrious body established by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635. The primary role of
the Academie was and still remains the regulation the French language by
determining the grammar and vocabulary that they are prepared to accept as
correct. Louis XIII was on the throne
when it began its work and in the ever increasingly autocratic society of the
French seventeenth century, it took its place as an instrument of central
control in the cultural domain. The Académie is limited to forty members, who are intended to
hold their seats for life - or perhaps much longer than that as they are
known as “les immortels”.

Academicians are mainly writers and
famous past members includeAlexandre Dumas,
Victor Hugo,
Montesquieu,Louis
Pasteur;andVoltaire. Their formal uniform features
notably a long black coat and black-featheredcocked
hat, richly embroidered with golden-green leafy motifs and the
men wear a sword (See cartoon below).

Our
knowledge of Brassens tells us that he would be an unlikely to see himself
occupying a “fauteuil de l’ Académie”. All his life his instincts
remained those of an anarchist and his constant targets were the human
institutions such as the police, the military and the Church and the Academy
would seem a prime example. The group
mentality of the crowd or the mob made him very uneasy. Even small numbers banded together could
threaten individuality and he used to
say: “…..à plus de 4 on est une bande de cons" He was hostile to those who
attempted to assert authority over others and it would indeed have been
treachery to join an elite body who sought to lay down the law for all French
speaking people.

In addition,
Brassens did not identify himself with the croquants and the croquantes but
with the common people of town and country.
It is in the song “Le petit joueur de flûtiau » he makes clear why
he could never become an immortal of the Académie
Française.

In view of this, it might seem ironical
that later in life Brassens accepted a
major honour at a ceremonial of the Académie.
It was on 8th June 1967 that the Académie Française awarded him le Grand Prix de poésie
in respect of the whole collection of his works. Brassens was sponsored by Marcel Pagnol and Joseph Kessel, who had led
the campaign for an official tribute to be
accorded to Brassens, acknowledging all his works over the years. Brassens was careful to let it be known that
he had never taken the least initiative to have his name put forward. The majority
of people saw the Academy’s top prize for poetry as timely recognition for a
great man’s talents. Brassens himself
was duly modest about the literary status of his songs. He said:

« Je ne pense pas être un poète… Un poète, ça vole quand
même un peu plus haut que moi… Je ne suis pas poète. J’aurais aimé l’être ……”. He expressed regret that he was not able to be a pure poet like the greats whom he
avidly read, such as Baudelaire, Verlaine and Rimbaud, Nevertheless he hoped that his songs
might offer a simplified access to poetry. In fact, the many admirers of Brassens would find this modesty unjustified He crafted his songs carefully, using many
devices of poetry and gave his works true literary quality. As I select videos from U Tube, I am struck
how often French bloggers express first and foremost their admiration for the
poetic quality of the songs they have seen performed.

However, after Brassens won the Grand Prix de Poesie there was a small minority that was outraged It was said that "a music hall singer" was
totally ineligible. It must have been
particularly painful for Brassens that some French satirists, with whom he would have previously
assumed shared sympathies, now made him their target.

In « Le
Canard Enchaîné » of the 14 juin 1967, Yvan Audouard published his
mocking version of Brassens’ award ceremony at the Académie. In his
piece there are teasing reminders of Brassens’ earlier declarations, a few years earlier in “Le petit joueur de flûtiau”. The satirist has not the least doubt that “Le joueur de flûte a trahi”, and offers his explanation for this betrayal. This is not flattering: he claims that Brassens’ health problems have led to a decline in his mental faculties:

"Brassens, en ce moment, il a des ennuis avec
ses rognons. Il a plus tout à fait sa tête à lui. Et puis il est si brave. Il
osera pas dire non ». “Brave” was the word Brassens used in
the last line of his song to commend the little flautist, and Audouard is
pointing to a betrayal of the principles in these lines:

The article
in the « Canard Enchaîné » asserts that the Grand Prix of the French Academy is
in some way the anti-chamber of the illustrious body. In accordance with this contention, a cartoon was published showing Brassens wearing the distinctive outfit
of an Academician. In reality Brassens was never elected to the Academy and never sought to be and was certainly never the man to wear this costume.

The writings
of Yvan Audouard were well regarded and his humour is described as facetious
rather than malicious. Brassens may have
been amused by it. However the description of Brassens’ medical problems
remains very sad. He was certainly not
in mental decline but he was a very sick man.
He had suffered from kidney problems for many years. In the previous month – June 1967- he had
been taken seriously ill and had undergone surgery for a second time. In the bad periods, he performed with an
ambulance waiting at the stage door and the perspiration, in which he was bathed on stage, was attributable to his condition as well as
to his habitual stage fright. This
detail is not easy to pass over with laughter.

Also among the critics at this time were lesser poets who felt themselves more qualified for the
award. In a famous little rhyme, JonathanSwift had once said that all poets should expect such irritation from their inferiors:

So naturalists observe, a fleaHas smaller fleas that on him prey;And these have smaller still to bite 'em,And so proceed ad infinitum.Thus every poet in his kindIs bit by him that comes behind.